Sitting in a coffee shop (mostly) minding my own business, I couldn\u2019t help overhearing the conversation of the two women next to me. One was tearfully disclosing to her friend that she\u2019d just broken up with her boyfriend and after detailing their final argument, paused for the anticipated outpouring of surprise and sympathy.<\/p>\n
However, the friend had clearly not been given the same script for this conversation, as she revealed she\u2019d never actually liked this guy, and frankly, thought her friend was better off without him. I resisted the urge to turn round and ask why she hadn\u2019t told her friend this before now, but fortunately I didn\u2019t have to resort to this social faux pas, as the newly single friend demanded to know the very same thing. Through sips of her latte, the friend shared the same sentiment that so many of us have experienced at one time or another: \u201cI didn\u2019t want to hurt your feelings\u201d. Leaving the coffee shop, and the two women still deep in conversation, I reflected on the challenges of being honest with your friends, especially when it comes to their partners.<\/p>\n
Of course, ideally our friends will choose partners that we like, so there will never be the need for a difficult coffee shop conversation. But no matter how much we think we know what\u2019s best for our friends, the reality is that we don\u2019t get to choose who they get together with, so we can find ourselves actively disliking their partner and scratching our heads about why they chose this person over all the better options out there. The dilemma then becomes whether to tell your friend. They may be open to constructive feedback on a new recipe they\u2019ve just cooked or an outfit they tried on in the Zara changing room, but criticising their partner is a whole different ball game and is unlikely to go well. <\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text module_class=”custom-quote” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” header_2_font=”Libre Bodoni|||on|||||” header_2_text_align=”center” header_2_text_color=”#333333″ header_2_font_size=”40px” header_2_line_height=”1.2em” global_colors_info=”{}”]
The first step in deciding whether to tell them is to figure out exactly why you dislike their partner. One possibility is that you have a personality clash and just don\u2019t \u2018click\u2019 with them.<\/p>\n
Maybe the way they constantly quote sci-fi movies sets your teeth on edge, or perhaps you hate that they shorten your friend\u2019s name into a cutesy pet name, despite her being a grown woman. Of course, you can roll your eyes internally to your heart\u2019s content but is it worthy of an \u201cI don\u2019t like your boyfriend\u201d conversation? Realistically, if your friend seems unbothered then your role is to plaster on a smile and tell her you\u2019re glad she\u2019s happy, even if you do have to say it through an avalanche of Star Trek quotes.<\/p>\n
Of course there\u2019s another possible reason for disliking them \u2013 the way they treat your friend. If a partner is showing signs of toxic, abusive or controlling behaviour, this is an opportunity for you to step up as a friend and have a conversation about it. Maybe your friend doesn\u2019t come out much now as her partner gets jealous, or when she does come out, she has to constantly send them photos to prove where she is.<\/p>\n
These behaviours could reasonably trigger a conversation with your friend, but of course that doesn\u2019t mean she\u2019ll be ready or willing to hear it. She might even offer excuses for their behaviour like, \u201che\u2019s only over-protective because his last partner cheated on him\u201d. All you can do is explain why you\u2019re concerned and reassure her that it\u2019s coming from a place of love and support for her, rather than disliking her partner. One of the most important things you can do here as a friend is to leave the door open for future conversations by saying, \u201cIt\u2019s okay if you don\u2019t want to talk about this now, but if you ever want to chat about it then I\u2019m here for you\u201d. This takes the pressure off them in the moment but lets them know they have support if they ever want it.<\/p>\n
It’s not always easy being a friend, certainly not as easy as Monica, Chandler and the gang would have us believe. It\u2019s especially challenging when we don\u2019t understand or agree with our friends\u2019 choice of partner, and we\u2019re forced to decide whether to have that difficult conversation. In those situations consider Morgan Matson\u2019s words: “Real friends are the ones you can count on no matter what, the ones who go into the forest to find you and bring you home\u201d. So if you dislike your friend\u2019s partner and can\u2019t decide whether to tell them, take a moment to figure out if this is just a personality clash or if they actually pose a risk to your friend, and if you truly believe they do, take a deep breath, put on your shoes and head into the forest.<\/p>\n
Dr Gill Harrop is a teacher at the <\/span><\/i>School of Psychology at the <\/i>University of Worcester<\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_divider color=”#111111″ divider_position=”center” divider_weight=”2px” module_class=”custom-divider” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” custom_margin=”0px||0px||false|false” custom_padding=”0px||0px||false|false” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_divider][et_pb_text module_class=”credit-texts” _builder_version=”4.20.4″ _module_preset=”default” text_font=”|||on|||||” text_orientation=”center” global_colors_info=”{}”] IMAGE: MAX<\/p>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" HAte your best friend’s husband? here’s how to tell her without ending your friendshipSitting in a coffee shop (mostly) minding my own business, I couldn\u2019t help overhearing the conversation of the two women next to me. One was tearfully disclosing to her friend that she\u2019d just broken up with her boyfriend and after detailing their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":3844,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-feature"],"acf":[],"modified_by":"kschwarz","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3842"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3855,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3842\/revisions\/3855"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flatplanplus.io\/grazia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}